3ali3h-:{ootenai Community College box 1020 Ronan, MT 59364
PABLO, MONTANA 59855 ISSN: 0528-8592
NEWSPAPER OF THE SAUSH, PEND rTOREILLE AND KOOTENAI TRIBES OF THE FLATHEAD INDIAN RESERVATION, WESTERN MONTANA
VOLUME 10 NUMBER 11 MOON OF THE HALF SUMMER - HALF AUTUMN
Primaries, yes; retrocession, who knows?
OCTOBER 15,1981
Between concurrent jurisdiction and Indian water rights, two major issues of recent concern, life has been pretty confusing here on the Flathead.
One thing can be reported with certainty, though: 289 tribal voters went to the polls on October 3 and decided that, yes, they'd like to have primary elections here. The final count, according to the BIA, who supervised the secretarial election, was
Council meeting changed
Since a quorum is not anticipated to be available for what should have been an October 16 Council meeting -there's an NC AI convention going on in Alaska - the Council will convene instead on Monday, October 19, at 9 a.m. in the Council Chambers in Pablo.
Off-Rez hunting rules suggested
Last month's series of district meetings about the October 3 referendum had an extra topic put on their unofficial agendas: hunting off the Reservation.
Tribal members, of course, have a right to hunt game in "open and unclaimed land" that once used to be their aboriginal territory. This right is guaranteed by the Hell Gate Treaty of 1855.
As the game gets scarce, though, and as the State gets tense about it, a need has been seen to draft some kind of system governing off-Reservation hunting. It's a case of either we show some initiative ourselves in the matter, or the State may claim a "jurisdictional void" and move in to set up their own rules, whether or not they actually have the authority to do so. As a result, Tribal Attorney Evelyn Stevenson and Tribal
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262 in favor, 27 opposed.
Left hanging in the air was whether or not tribal members want to back off from sharing jurisdiction over certain matters with the State of Montana. That issue was withdrawn from the ballot by an unanimous decision of the Tribal Council one day before the referendum.
Contributing to the last-minute ballot change were three areas of confusion: What are the consequences and cost of retrocession? How do you go about retroceding? Isn't this too important an issue to allow it to be decided by a mere handful of tribal members?
It was also felt that things were happening too quickly. Those questions above needed answering first and needed to be explained to the membership before asking them to make a decision.
A final factor was the controversy surrounding the BIA's registration drive. A lot of people failed to register either because they didn't realize the difference between a secretarial and a tribal election, or they mistakenly thought they were automatically eligible for the October 3 vote because they voted at some earlier election. Others said that they'd spent most or all of their lives on the Reservation, and how dare the BIA try
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Inside this issue
Water conference report.........................Page 3
Quarterly highlights.............................Page 4
Catholics in Indian Country......................Page 7
"Letters to the Editor"..........................Page 8
"Charlo's People*continues......................Page 9
Health Corner................................Page 11
"Around the Campfire"........................Page 16
Council Minutes..............................Page 22